Effective management of European Union (EU) funds is not only high on the agenda of the new EU member states but also of the Western Balkan countries that are progressing in the EU integration process. As such, these countries face several important challenges and questions today.

On becoming an EU member, how much will the budget calendar and its preparation need to change? How best to plan and execute projects which are pre-financed? How to record unspent EU funds in the next fiscal year? To what extent should the Ministry of Finance be involved in the process before the signing of financial agreements with the EU? These and other questions arise in relation to the impact on a country’s fiscal position, co-financing obligations, pre-financings and bridging resources, and payment of errors.

As we get ready to kick off the new year, let’s recount the voices and stories about how we can enhance the way we interact with our planet. From Ethiopia to Indonesia, we’ve seen our efforts improve lives and help incomes grow as countries and communities strive for greener landscapes, healthier oceans and cleaner air.

Take a look back at some of the most popular stories you may have missed in 2014:

Can the world end extreme poverty by 2030? Will it be able to avert the worst effects of climate change or stop Ebola? These challenges are among the biggest we face today. In 2014, the World Bank Group tapped its knowledge, finance, and influence to confront global problems.

1) Taking on economic growth

In the wake of the financial crisis, developing countries were the engine of the global economy. In 2014, they faced new risks: lower growth, less financing, and lower prices for their commodities. In January and again in June, the World Bank urged developing countries to get their houses in order. Countries need blueprints to maintain the kind of growth that helped cut extreme poverty nearly in half globally in the last couple of decades. With the financial crisis fading, now is the time for developing countries to strengthen their economies so they can keep reducing poverty, according to the twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects.

What fascinated people most about global development in 2014? A look at the most popular World Bank Group content on social media and the web may offer some insight. We’ve compiled a selection of the Bank’s top 10 most liked, viewed, and favorited posts on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, and the web. Have a look and tell us your top development issues of 2014.

What I remember most of the first hours after learning about the tsunami was radio silence. Aceh, it seemed, had ceased to exist. The limited infrastructure in Indonesia’s northernmost province was decimated and none of the survivors was able to update the outside world.

To understand the scope of what had happened I flew to Aceh the following day. Since then I have carried with me indelible images of survivors who had nothing left but the clothes on their bodies. There were remnants of lives swept away, of loved ones who disappeared, and a desert of mud and debris beyond repair.

The death toll kept on rising for weeks. In the end, of the over 230,000 people who died in 14 countries, 220,000 were from Aceh. We estimated the disaster had caused damage worth $4.45 billion.

Ten years after the tsunami, I remember the loss of lives not only as the tragedy it was, but as a moment that changed the way the world manages disasters. I take some consolation from the fact that people survive disasters more often today because of the lessons we learned from the tsunami that affected so many of my fellow Indonesians.

​The World Bank Group and the Wharton School of Business are co-sponsoring “Ideas for Action,” a competition to mobilize youth across the development community to invent, foster, and inspire innovative solutions to financing development post-2015.

Nearly half the world’s population is under 25 – 2.9 billion people. Today’s youth will be responsible for delivering the post-2015 development agenda, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals, which will replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire at the end of 2015. The new goals will be more ambitious, covering a broad range of interconnected issues, from sustainable economic growth to social issues to global public goods. To realize this vision, an equally ambitious plan for financing and implementation is needed.

Teams are self-selected and made up of three to five members, ages ranging from 18 to 35 years old. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 31, 2015. Finalists will be announced on April 5, 2015, and the winners on March 30, 2015. Winners will be given an opportunity to influence the post-2015 financing discussions and its implementation.

I’m happy to announce and share the list of the winners and finalists of the first WBG Big Data Innovation Challenge. We remain open to partnerships to help push forward any and all of these initiatives.

As the United Nations marks International Migrants Day, it’s worth remembering that over 230 million people in the world are migrants. Whether they’re mothers or fathers, daughters or sons, wives or husbands, they left home to look for work elsewhere, usually abroad, to support families left behind.